SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
mental health
Mental Health Is Worker Health
It is clear from occupational health research that work does impact mental health, and this impact should compel politicians to explicitly legislate and develop regulations to protect workers' mental health.
Sep 29, 2026
Over the summer, the Fifth Circuit Court, in a case brought by ExxonMobil, ruled that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, had “exceeded its statutory authority” by citing Exxon for failing to record a work-related mental illness.
This case followed an incident in Baytown, Texas where an explosion and fire occurred during repairs on a hydro-desulfurization unit, injuring multiple workers. After the explosion, a technician volunteered to lead firefighters to several valves that needed to be shut off to prevent the fire from continuing. While receiving treatment after his first excursion to assist the firefighters, he courageously agreed to lead the first responders to another valve.
Following this incident, the technician experienced anxiety and was later diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by two professionals. Despite these diagnoses, Exxon did not accept the determination that his PTSD was work-related and requested that the technician see another provider, which the technician refused. The union that represented workers at the Baytown location reported the incident to OSHA, which then issued a penalty against Exxon for failing to record the technician’s PTSD as work related.
It is also important to acknowledge that there is not a clear distinction between physical injury or illness and mental illness.
After Exxon challenged the penalty, the Fifth Circuit Court canceled the penalty based on a narrow reading of OSHA’s authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to “prescribe regulations requiring employers to maintain accurate records of, and to make periodic reports on, work-related deaths, injuries and illnesses,” concluding that the “illnesses” referred to in the act do not include mental illnesses.
While others have questioned the soundness of the legal reasoning in the decision, it is clear from occupational health research that work does impact mental health, and that this impact on mental health has consequences for the life, well-being, and indeed physical health of workers. This impact should compel politicians to explicitly legislate and develop regulations to protect workers' mental health.
Recognizing the impact of work on mental health is nothing new. In an 1844 issue of the Lowell Offering—the publication created by Lowell Mill Girls in the early days of the industrial revolution in the United States—Harriet Farley speculated on how the nature of the toil in work at the Lowell Mills could have contributed to the recent suicides of two of her comrades:
In factory labor it is sometimes an advantage, but also sometimes the contrary, that the mind is thrown back upon itself—it is forced to depend upon its own resources, for a large proportion of the time of the operative. Excepting by sight, the females hold but little companionship with each other.
Specific work-related factors associated with adverse health consequences include long work hours, shift work, bullying, harassment, workplace violence, traumatic events, low control over work, and job insecurity. These factors stem from the work environment and are not just a concern because of their impact on workers' mental health, although this connection is clear. These sources of stress in the work environment can also increase the risk of physical health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders (such as carpal tunnel syndrome and low back pain), and acute traumatic injuries. The burden of exposure to these workplace factors is not borne equally by all workers. Due to occupational segregation, exposure to these workplace stressors is often higher among Black and Hispanic workers, thereby contributing to health disparities.
A large proportion of workplace fatalities are also tied to mental health. In 2024, in the US, there were reported 410 workplace drug overdoses and 263 workplace suicides. The role of the workplace in these causes of death, both of which are among the leading causes of death in the United States, even when they occur outside of the workplace, has become clear. One recent study estimated that work-related factors, including chemical exposures, lack of social support, and long work hours, contribute to 10-13% of suicides. Similarly, research has revealed that the mental health impacts of factors like workplace stress and job insecurity contribute to the risk of drug overdoses. The role of the workplace in this risk for drug overdoses is seen in the fact that the loss of manufacturing jobs at the county level is associated with increases in drug overdose mortality.
It is also important to acknowledge that there is not a clear distinction between physical injury or illness and mental illness, as the Fifth Circuit Court Ruling suggests. Indeed, the very event that prompted the ruling was both a physical hazard, as shown by the resulting injuries, and a mental health hazard, as shown by the technician’s PTSD. Injuries at work have negative consequences for mental health. Research suggests that both physical and psychosocial hazards at work affect the risk of musculoskeletal disorders.
A variety of methods exist to protect workers’ mental health. In Australia, workplaces are required to minimize psychological hazards “so far as is reasonably practicable.” Reducing occupational psychosocial risks is an imperative under the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. Denmark requires that “[a]t all stages, the work must be planned, organised and carried out in a responsible way to ensure that its impact on the psychosocial working environment is safe and healthy, individually and collectively, in both short and long term.” In the US, some states have addressed parts of the problem by including work-related PTSD in workers' compensation laws; workplace violence regulations; laws that require minimum nurse staffing levels or ban mandatory overtime for nurses; and paid sick leave, paid family leave, or coverage of domestic workers under labor laws.
Workplaces can also implement policies and programs to protect workers’ mental health. MATES in Construction is an Australian program that has since been adopted elsewhere and seeks to prevent suicide in the construction industry—an industry with the highest suicide risk in the United States—by increasing awareness of mental health challenges, reducing stigma, and connecting workers to support resources. In a similar way, Recovery Friendly Workplaces seek to create work environments that support people with substance use challenges in receiving the support and treatment they need.
While the prospect of similar regulations being applied nationally in the United States may seem bleak in the current political environment, especially following the recent Fifth Circuit Court ruling, the need to address the impact of work on mental health remains.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Artificially Fabricated Insanity': Trump Is Nuts—and Makes Us Nutty Too
Is Trump insane? Are those who believe Trump’s artificially fabricated world insane? Are they making the rest of us insane?
Aug 31, 2026
I still come across people who believe Trump won the 2020 election, that the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an act of patriotism, that Trump’s subsequent indictments and felonies were Biden’s work, that most immigrants are criminals, that Democrats are evil, that Jews are trying to replace white Christians born in America, that Muslims can’t be trusted, that a significant amount of voting is fraudulent, that we’re winning the war against Iran, that the economy has never been as good, that climate change is a hoax, that Canada poses a threat to the United States and it’s only fair for Lake Ontario to be renamed Lake America.
To label these people “deluded” is to overlook an entire world created by Trump and his assistants, Cabinet secretaries, “spokespeople,” other political appointees, Republican enablers in Congress and state legislatures, and billionaire accomplices in the media (Musk, Murdoch, Pichai, Bezos, Zuckerberg, the Ellisons) — all of whom have reinforced Trump’s “artificially fabricated insanity,” as the philosopher Hannah Arendt once termed the technique of totalitarian tyrants.
Google, for example, just updated its Maps application to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.” ** (It’s already relabeled the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”)
Totalitarian movements, Arendt wrote, succeed not by convincing people of a specific lie but by creating a consistent, logical fictional world that defies ordinary common sense and human experience.
Which raises the questions that a growing number of Americans are asking: Is Trump insane? Are those who believe Trump’s artificially fabricated world insane? Are they making the rest of us insane?
I remember during the Biden administration when a panel of medical experts — the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — recommended that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for depression and “anxiety disorders.” The advisory group said the guidance was intended to deal with a rise in mental health disorders that were going undetected and untreated.
The advice highlighted the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued Americans in recent years, especially since Trump and his enablers and accomplices have come to power. Lori Pbert, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, who served on the task force, called mental health disorders “a crisis in this country.”
But maybe we need to stop thinking about anxiety and depression as “disorders” and start regarding them as rational responses to a society that’s become ever more disordered under Trump, and to an economy that’s been leaving so many behind.
Sane Americans are outraged by Trump’s continuous lies, terrified by his attacks on our democracy, upset by his arbitrary renaming and rearranging of our reality, angry about his brutality toward immigrants in our communities, and furious at his encouragement of homophobia, transphobia, and racism. They’re also concerned about the soaring costs of living and growing insecurity of jobs.
Let me be clear: Trump is out of his gourd. He’s losing all connection to reality. His lies are becoming more brazen. His statements about Canada, his war in Iran, the economy, and immigrants, all increasingly bizarre.
But his MAGA movement is just about over. His polls are in the cellar. Many of his followers now see through his lies. “It is in the moment of defeat that the inherent weakness of totalitarian propaganda becomes visible,” Arendt wrote. At such point, the followers of tyrants “quietly give up the movement as a bad bet.”
Yes, of course, we need better access to mental-heath care. We also need better wages, more job security, and stronger safety nets.
Perhaps even more important to the mental well-being of most Americans, we need an administration and media that don’t promote artificially fabricated insanity but that consistently and reliably tell Americans the whole truth.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Despite Growing Alarm, Trump Says Record USS Lincoln Deployment ‘Not Nearly Long Enough’
“Countdown until this is used in an attack ad.”
Aug 14, 2026
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wasn't concerned about reports of wretched conditions and possible suicide attempts by sailors aboard the USS Lincoln. He said their record-breaking deployment as part of his Iran War is "not nearly long enough."
Earlier this week, military publications detailed deteriorating mental health aboard the ship, where about 5,000 sailors and Marines have been deployed for more than 260 days and have gone roughly 200 days without returning to port.
Following earlier reports of food shortages, faulty plumbing, and grueling 12-16 hour workdays, the Military Times reported that multiple sailors have attempted to jump overboard.
The Navy has declined to say whether the incidents were suicide attempts and has said it has “not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship."
Last week, more than 200 spouses and other family members met with senior Navy leaders in San Diego to raise concerns about conditions aboard the carrier, including sailors' mental health and risks of suicide and self-harm, according to Stars and Stripes.
The Navy did not fully detail how it was responding to family members’ concerns, though it said the ship had counselors, chaplains, medical professionals, and other support services. Family members also said officials told them additional mental health personnel were being sent.
As Democrats pressed the Pentagon for answers and oversight into conditions on the Lincoln, Trump was asked about the complaints as he prepared to board Air Force One on Friday.
"The family members of US service members are concerned about the conditions on the USS Lincoln," a reporter said.
"No, they're not," Trump interjected.
He noted that the ship was in the process of leaving its current Middle East deployment to be replaced with "a very similar ship," referring to the USS George Washington.
"Has the deployment gone on too long?" the reporter asked.
"No, no, no," Trump responded. "Not nearly long enough."
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee immediately seized on the remark, portraying it as another instance of Trump displaying callous disregard for soldiers "abandoned in a pointless war."
Trump has previously faced criticism for downplaying the harms Americans face as a result of his war in Iran. For those at home, he's emphasized that he was not worried "even a little bit" about the war's economic costs and has said it's "not possible" to take care of funding for daycare, Medicare, and Medicaid because "we’re fighting wars."
He's also been accused of disrespecting those who suffered and died in combat by using a photo of himself attending a fallen soldier’s dignified transfer in a political fundraising email and by claiming that four slain soldiers had endorsed his rationale to attack Iran and that their loved ones had begged him to "finish the job."
The administration has also been accused of underreporting the casualty numbers from the war, leading to calls for investigation from Democrats.
With midterm elections now less than three months away, Iran continues to be the least popular major war in modern history, with polls consistently showing that only around a third of Americans support it.
Responding to Trump's remarks about soldiers suffering aboard the Lincoln, Brian Finucane, senior adviser for the International Crisis Group's US program, said, "Countdown until this is used in an attack ad."
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Military Morale in the Middle East Is in the Overflowing Toilet
Rotten food, no room in the incoming missile shelters, confiscation of alert notification devices for incoming missiles (cellphones), infrequent mail, jumping off aircraft carriers, overflowing toilets... military families speak out for their loved ones, again and again.
Aug 14, 2026
Rotten food, overflowing toilets into bunking areas, no room in the incoming missile shelters, confiscated cellphones that are the notification devices for incoming missiles, infrequent mail, social media closed down, were some of the issues that military families identified at the national conference of Veterans For Peace.
Spouses and parents of Air Force, Army, Marine, and Navy members told of plummeting morale, lack of basic supplies, and attacks on US military bases that are not reported in the US media.
The frustration of the military families at the VFP conference echoed the descriptions of life on US military bases in the Middle East under attack by the Iranian response to the brutal US-Israeli five-month attack on Iran made by military families who met with the acting assistant secretary of the Navy and the commander of the US Pacific Fleet in San Diego on August 6, 2026.
Big Problems on Long Deployments for US Naval Vessels, Ships’ Infrastructure, and Sailors' Physical and Mental Health
On August 6, 2026, the Navy's senior leadership held listening sessions with the families of aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln's sailors—one in-person session in San Diego, and a second online session later the same evening. Family members leaked recordings of those sessions that described conditions aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln: showers plagued with stubborn mildew, flagging morale, heavy fatigue, shortages of supplies and food, contaminated water supplies, and lost mail.
US troops suffered shrapnel wounds, broken bones, smoke inhalation, and other injuries. But one category appeared far more often than any other: head trauma.
Since departing from Naval Base San Diego on November 21, 2025, the USS Abraham Lincoln and its crew of 5,000 sailors and Marines has been deployed more than 250 days, with only a stop in Guam in December and a brief visit in Oman in June after 208 days at sea.
A second aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford had similar problems when it sailed from the Caribbean to the Middle East after being off Venezuela in the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in January 2026. During that deployment, the ship’s toilets kept failing, with sewage often overflowing and spilling onto the floor. Additionally, a fire broke out in the laundry room, causing enough damage that the Ford went into a port on the Greek island of Crete for repairs.
More than 200 sailors were treated for smoke inhalation, with one sailor medically evacuated from the carrier, after being injured in the damage control effort. Two others were treated for lacerations.
The smoke damage from the laundry room fire extended to the berthing. More than 100 bunks and personal gear were destroyed in the fire.
Articles in Stars and Stripes and the Navy Times detail at least six attempts by crew members to jump overboard from the USS Abraham Lincoln, with interviews conducted with sailors and families of those on board who described the impacts of the lengthy deployment.
USS Abraham Lincoln Sailor's Father Proposes 'Parent Swap' To Replace His Son
One parent was fed up with the conditions his son is living under. On August 13, Jefferson Kelley, the father of a USS Abraham Lincoln sailor wrote to his U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) asking Moreno to make an official inquiry to the US Navy to see if he could do a “parent swap” with his son, Jackson, 20, due to the terrible conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Kelley said he had not been asked by his son to make the swap, but he had read of the conditions on the aircraft carrier that included food rations, safety concerns, water contamination, and poor mental health, which has purportedly led to some sailors attempting to jump overboard during the 250 days at sea and felt that he as a parent should share the burden.
Kelley had not discussed his proposal with his son, before writing to the Senator, which may make his son’s remaining time on the aircraft carrier more difficult than it already is!
Army and Marine Ground Forces Under Missile Attacks
Families of US ground forces on the US military bases scattered all over the Middle East describe overcrowding to no room in shelters against incoming missiles and command's confiscating of cellphones that are the notification devices for incoming missiles.
The US military says that Iran watches social media postings of attacks and to prevent such postings, cellphones may be taken away, but families respond that notification of incoming missile attacks is by cellphone.
According to the news outlet War Horse, the only public source for injuries during the US attack on Iran is the Defense Casualty Analysis System, which provides monthly totals for the War on Iran with limited demographic data.
More than 400 casualties (nonlethal) were recorded in the first month between February 28 and April 8 of the US attack on Iran, with Army personnel accounting for most of the casualties.
More than 270 of the roughly 400 casualties (nonlethal) were Army soldiers, and about one-third of those were reservists. Enlisted soldiers accounted for most Army casualties, including 57 sergeants and 53 specialists. But also wounded were 64 Army officers, including 20 captains, and 13 lieutenant colonels or colonels.
The Navy reported 64 casualties, none of whom were classified as seriously injured. The Air Force recorded 51 casualties, and the Marine Corps recorded 19. Unlike the Army, the other branches did not list the type or cause of injury.
US troops suffered shrapnel wounds, broken bones, smoke inhalation, and other injuries. But one category appeared far more often than any other: head trauma.
Hundreds of Troops Suffering From Head Trauma
A large portion of the wounded suffering from head trauma has led some military health experts to worry that traumatic brain injuries—caused by damage to the brain that can impact thinking, movement, and emotion—could become the signature injury of this war, as in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
18 US troops have been killed and 624 wounded Since February 28
The Pentagon has attempted to reduce the accounting on the number of US military killed or wounded in the war on Iran by separating those killed or wounded before the May 1 ceasefire and after. The total killed and wounded before and after the ceasefire are 18 US troops have been killed and 624 wounded since the US began its war against Iran on February 28.
Senate Armed Services Committee Finally Getting Involved
The US Congress is finally getting involved. On August 12, 2026, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the acting secretary of the Navy to express “serious concern” about the increasing length of deployments and demand answers about living conditions aboard the carrier.
“There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns,” aboard the ship, he said in the letter, as well as “disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months.”
Blumenthal’s letter ends with six questions for Hegseth and the Department of Defense to answer concerning conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln and a call to treatment servicewomen and men properly:
The men and women aboard the Lincoln have answered the call to serve their country. The Department owes them not only adequate supplies, maintenance, and support during this deployment, but a sustainable force-generation model that does not rely on repeatedly extending sailors and ships to meet persistent operational demands.
Our servicemembers deserve nothing less than the full support of their government—and the American people deserve a military strategy that is worthy of the sacrifices we ask them to make.
Update: This article has been edited to include a new section, "USS Abraham Lincoln Sailor's Father Proposes 'Parent Swap' To Replace His Son."
Keep ReadingShow Less
An ICE Killing in Maine Shows Why Vets Need Vetting—And Not Just in Politics
Under current circumstances, no friends, family members, or employment counselors of young veterans should encourage them to answer the siren call of ICE—no matter how much they need a job.
Aug 12, 2026
The media spent a lot of time this summer examining whether a certain Maine oysterman and Marine veteran seeking federal employment should have been better vetted by those around him.
Even after Graham Platner abandoned his US Senate bid, his friends and foes argue about whether service-related conditions—which earned him a 100% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—contributed to past substance abuse, mental health problems, and aggression against intimate partners.
Now, in the same state, the spotlight has shifted to David Brouillette, a troubled Afghan war vet who might also have been better off harvesting oysters. Brouillette spent eight years in the US Army and state National Guard before getting hired for not one, but two federal jobs. Thanks to an ill-advised push to recruit more ex-military personnel for law enforcement roles, without proper background checks, he got to carry a gun again.
Last month, after serving as a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) police officer, a prison guard, and then joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Brouillette fatally shot Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, a young Colombian immigrant, during a traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine.
The Vet-to-Cop Pipeline
Thanks to Congress allocating $30 billion to create 10,000 more positions for that agency between 2025 and 2030—and job cuts at other federal departments, which often employ veterans—more ex-soldiers are getting hired into a paramilitary workforce, with insufficient screening, minimal training, and leaders who valorize brutality. Those who have already been cops go to the head of the line for signing bonuses as high as $50,000.
Brouillette is among the 200,000 veterans disproportionately represented in the nation’s nearly 1 million law enforcement jobs, ranging from local police departments to the fast-growing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During a 10-year period, nearly one-third of more than 500 cops involved in a shooting incident were veterans.
For their own good and the welfare of all Americans, some of these vets should not trade one uniform for another. That’s because past military service not only produces Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); it can also leave former service members with traumatic brain injuries that trigger aggressive and impulsive behavior.
In the case of Maine mass shooter Robert Card, a longtime Army Reserve grenade range instructor who never served in combat, that condition led to the slaughter of 18 neighbors at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, almost three years ago. Far more common is the rocky personal transition to civilian life typified by twice-divorced Brouillette, whose father and brother also served in the military.
Mental Health Issues
According to Brouillette’s first ex-wife, Ashley, he first became verbally and physically abusive after joining the military in 2007. His subsequent misbehavior, she told The New York Times, included choking her, slamming her to the floor, and pushing her against a wall. In 2012, such “threats and harassment were so persistent,” she fled the state to escape him. “He has mental health issues, he’s short-tempered, he’s reactive, [and] he should be in treatment,” she says.
Seven years later, his next ex-wife sought a restraining order against Brouillette after he “broke her door down, destroyed her belongings, and dumped her clothes over a bridge,” and spat in her face. In her court filing, she expressed fear about his stalking her by “coming to my home or sitting in the parking lot of my work.” So, as CNN found, a judge twice issued temporary orders requiring Brouillette to relinquish any firearms in 2019 and 2021.
To make matters worse, when Brouillette retrained to become a firefighter in 2021, a heavy I-beam fell on his head, inflicting serious damage. In a lawsuit over the accident, he confessed to having “impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo, and high sensitivity.”
Long before he fired the shots that killed Guerrero, he had already worked among VA patients and staff in Maine, as part of an agency police force with its own troubled history of using excessive force. And then he moved on seamlessly to ICE last December, despite a checkered court record and non-military head injury that should have been disqualifying.
A Bad Career Choice
When we were researching an earlier book on veterans, two retired Army officers, both West Point grads, expressed deep concern about policing, of any kind, as a post-military career among veterans at risk for substance abuse and suicide because of PTSD, chronic pain, or traumatic brain injuries.
Daniel Sjursen, a much-decorated major who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told us that, “when you leave the service, there’s no de-programming…They just load you up on meds, and then you go straight to the police academy.” Because “military-style of policing is based on the notion that high-crime areas should be treated like occupied countries, a guy can come back to Baltimore, Camden, or Detroit and function the same way we did when occupying Kabul or Baghdad.”
As his fellow officer, a Gulf War combat vet and military historian Andrew Bacevic noted, “To the extent that we’ve got a bunch of damaged young people, then maybe the last thing we want to do is put them in a job where they carry a gun in an environment that’s going to make things worse.”
So don’t hold your breath waiting for justice for Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. For the last 18 months, federal immigration agents have operated with far less public oversight and accountability than any local police department.
Even during Barack Obama’s administration, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) was not listening to such knowledgeable insiders. Instead, the DOJ provided local police departments around the country with tens of millions of dollars to fund veterans-only positions.
As noted in a 2017 report by the Marshall Project, “When Warriors Put On the Badge,” this combination of special funding and preferential hiring mandated by state or federal law has made it harder to “build police forces that resemble and understand diverse communities.” The new hires benefiting most have been disproportionately white, because 60% of all enlisted men and women are not people of color.
Inappropriate Use of Force
Under the first Trump administration, the DOJ had little interest in tracking the later job performance of recently hired veterans or how their military background might affect their behavior.
By that time, however, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) had already raised concerns about “the integration of military personnel” into law enforcement. In their own 2009 hiring guide, the IACP noted that, in the case of returning combat veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan, their combat environment and their policing environments may appear surprisingly similar.”
As a result, prior military service in the Middle East “may cause returning officers to mistakenly blur the lines between military combat situations and civilian crime situations, resulting in inappropriate decisions and actions, particularly in the use of lethal force.”
Cosponsored by the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, this IACP report also noted that vets who have PTSD and related “depression, anger, withdrawal, and family issues” may have “a low tolerance for civilian complaints” and greater propensity for the “inappropriate use of force.” Some police chiefs interviewed reported that veterans under their command had come back “ill prepared for the civilian world” because their PTSD left them with “exaggerated survival instincts.”
Officer-Involved Shootings
Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health found that Dallas Police Department officers with military experience used their guns while on duty more than non-veterans. During a 10-year period, nearly one-third of more than 500 cops involved in a shooting incident were veterans. Those who had been deployed overseas were nearly three times as likely to have fired their weapon; those who had not been deployed were still twice as likely to be involved in a shooting. This study, published in the Journal of Public Health, concluded that some veterans employed by the Dallas police department lacked “critical thinking skills” when confronted with “high stress scenarios.”
The Marshall Project reported similar findings after it studied use-of-force complaints and fatal police shootings in several cities. In Boston and Miami, officers with military experience generated more civilian complaints of excessive force. Nearly one-third of the Albuquerque officers involved in a total of 35 fatal shootings between January 2010 and April 2014 were veterans. One of the officers sued after killing an unarmed motorist was an Iraq War veteran whose PTSD caused flashbacks, nightmares, and blackouts. Nevertheless, as the Marshall Project discovered, he was “assigned to patrol a high-crime area of town known as ‘the War Zone.’”
“To ensure public safety and guarantee a stable, reliable, and productive workforce,” Marshall Project researchers cited the need for clear and consistent police department policies to “evaluate employees’ mental and physical fitness. Yet local police department screening practices, around the country, remain far from standardized or effective. Some agencies employ the use of administrative interviews and psychological evaluations to assess how veteran officers will perform the essential functions of their position, while other agencies revert to their department medical officer, or lack any policy at all.”
No Local Constraints
Whatever unhelpful contribution to militarized policing has been made by hiring too many post-9/11 vets, new and old cops in Dallas, Boston, Miami, and other cities at least walk the streets without masks on. They display badges with their names and, in most places, wear body cameras as well. If they screw up in a high-stress situation, they are subject to internal affairs investigations or civilian police review board questioning, particularly if an officer-involved shooting has occurred.
When an Army veteran named Derek Chauvin put George Floyd in a fatal choke hold six years ago in Minneapolis, he was even prosecuted and sentenced to a long prison term. When another military veteran named Jonathan Rose—a former machine gunner in Iraq deployed in the Twin Cities last winter as an ICE agent—fired on Renee Good, did he face any criminal charges for killing a gay non-immigrant mother of three? Not yet.
So don’t hold your breath waiting for justice for Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. For the last 18 months, federal immigration agents have operated with far less public oversight and accountability than any local police department. In the process, they have killed 23 people under circumstances that homicide detectives and local prosecutors have been blocked from properly investigating.
The Department of Homeland Security has just doubled down on its policy of not releasing the names of officers involved in these fatal encounters. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been directed to stop investigating claims by those, like David Brouillette, who say they used lethal force in response to being endangered.
Under current circumstances, no friends, family members, or employment counselors of young veterans should encourage them to answer the siren call of ICE—no matter how much they need a job. As one former ICE official told the Boston Globe, ”We should all be concerned… that they have lowered standards, that they have rushed hiring, and they have made offers to people before their vetting is complete.”
Even if applicants from military backgrounds lack the self-confessed “cognitive deficits” of Brouillette, wearing camo again—while stopping traffic, knocking down doors, brandishing automatic weapons, and engaging in car chases—is not a healthy career choice, for them or us.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Good Start': Meta Fine Now Nearly $1 Billion for Social Media Giant's Harm to Kids
"We cannot allow Meta to put its short-term profits above the emotional well-being of our kids," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Aug 07, 2026
A New Mexico court on Thursday ruled that Meta must pay an additional $567 million fine on top of the $375 million a jury fined the tech giant in March for harms caused to teens and children who use its Instagram and Facebook social media platforms.
First Judicial District Judge Bryan Biedscheid said in his 68-pager ruling that "significant numbers of people in New Mexico experience harm from Meta’s products due to risks of sexual exploitation, interference with education, and adverse mental health outcomes."
"The harm to the impacted New Mexicans is not doubtful, eventual, or contingent, but an immediate, temporally connected, and highly probable result of Meta’s actions," he continued.
"The youth mental health crisis has inflicted significant and widespread harm in New Mexico in terms of the number of youth suffering mental health harms, the profound suffering they and those in their families suffer, and the resulting interferences with the functioning of the schools, law enforcement, [and] healthcare systems in New Mexico," the judge added.
The case centered on allegations that Meta knowingly designed and operated Facebook and Instagram in ways that exposed children to harmful content, encouraged excessive use, and failed to adequately protect minors from exploitation. New Mexico officials argued that internal company knowledge and outside warnings showed Meta was aware of risks associated with its platforms but did not act sufficiently to address them.
Most of the new fine—$420 million—will go toward funding youth treatment services, while the rest is designated for awareness and prevention, screening services, and other costs.
Biedscheid's order also compels Meta to make changes to its platforms in New Mexico, including removing "like" counts and only showing them to minors with parental consent, and prohibiting overnight push notifications for users under age 18.
"Regardless of whether it is labeled as an 'addiction' or 'problematic use,' the evidence at trial proved that design elements, such as autoplay, infinite scroll, 'like counts,' and push notifications create a product that, particularly for adolescent users, is highly rewarding psychologically and neurochemically," he wrote. "As a result, for many, it is irresistibly compelling to start scrolling and very difficult to stop or abstain from its use."
"In addition," the judge added, "algorithmic content recommendations can create harmful feedback loops and 'rabbit hole' users. Within a similar vein, 'like counts'... can provide a potentially harmful focus for adolescent users."
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company would appeal the ruling, claiming: “We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content. We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez hailed the ruling, saying that “Meta built products it knew would fuel addiction, deepen a youth mental health crisis, and expose children to sexual exploitation, then lied to parents and policymakers about the danger. Today, it pays for that choice.”
At Fairplay—a children's advocacy group—executive director Josh Golin hailed the "landmark ruling" as "the clearest indication yet that the tide is turning when it comes to protecting kids from social media."
"For the first time, Meta is being compelled by a court to change its dangerous and harmful design," he continued. "And with so many states lined up to sue Meta and other social media companies, we should expect to see a lot more injunctive relief to make online platforms used by young people safer."
“This ruling also clearly indicates why families need the Kids Online Safety Act," Golin added, referring to a controversial bill advanced this week by the Senate Commerce Committee. "The judge said it was up to Congress to address the addictive features on Instagram and other social media platforms. KOSA’s duty of care against compulsive use is the key to ensuring that Meta and other social media companies stop designing for addiction, as addictive design is the root of all social media harms.”
Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement: "This verdict is an important step towards creating safer social media for children and young people. For years, Amnesty International has warned that major social media platforms have been designed to maximize engagement and profit, while failing to adequately protect children’s rights."
“Crucially, the court went beyond imposing a financial penalty," he continued. "By ordering changes to platform features, including removing 'like' counts for people under 18 and restricting overnight notifications, the ruling recognizes that the harms children experience online are often the result of deliberate design choices."
“Amnesty has been calling for exactly this kind of action," Mazzola added. "Child safety must be built into platforms from the start, not added as an afterthought once harms are identified. This decision sends a clear message that social media companies cannot continue to prioritize engagement at the expense of children’s well-being and rights.”
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on Bluesky: "This is good news. For far too long, Big Tech corporations have put their bottom lines ahead of the health and safety of kids on their platforms."
"Congress must continue to push for accountability and real guardrails for companies like Meta as tech giants continue to grow," added Jayapal, who was critical of the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act approved by the House of Representatives in June.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also welcomed the ruling, posting on X that billionaire Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "greed is fueling a youth mental health crisis in America."
"Today, a judge ordered Meta to pay a $567 million fine for the damage it has done to our kids," Sanders added. "Good start. We cannot allow Meta to put its short-term profits above the emotional well-being of our kids."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Two More Israeli Soldiers Kill Themselves Amid Crisis Driven by Horrors of Genocide
"As humans," explained one psychologist, "we can be both victims and perpetrators."
Jul 29, 2026
Two more Israeli soldiers killed themselves over the past two days, bringing renewed scrutiny to what experts say is a worsening mental health emergency inside the Israel Defense Forces during 33 months of genocidal war on Gaza and enduring stigma around seeking treatment.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, two female IDF troops—a combat soldier and an intelligence officer—died by suicide this week. Israeli Military Police said they are investigating both deaths, which bring the number of active duty IDF troops who have killed themselves this year to at least 16. Haaretz said that at least nine former IDF soldiers have also committed suicide after completing their military service in 2026.
The latest deaths underscore what military officials, mental health professionals, and veterans have increasingly described as one of the most severe psychological crises the Israeli military has faced in decades.
Earlier this year, Haaretz reported that Israeli military suicides reached 21 in 2024 and 22 in 2025—the highest annual totals in roughly 15 years. Israel's oldest daily newspaper also found that the military had reduced the number of mental health officers available to soldiers despite unprecedented demand for psychological services.
The crisis has been exacerbated by repeated troop deployments since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack—itself the cause of tremendous trauma and some suicides by survivors—and Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza, which has been characterized by what prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague say are crimes against humanity and war crimes, and what a United Nations panel of experts said is a genocide.
More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza, some of them reportedly executed at close range.
IDF troops and Israeli and international medical workers have described the deliberate and indiscriminate shooting of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, some of whom were reportedly executed. Former Palestinian prisoners and Israeli troops and doctors have also reported torture and sexual abuse of detainees, and of civilians including children and even a toddler. Such carnage and abuse has taken a toll on the perpetrators as well as their victims.
A persistent stigma surrounding mental health treatment also discourages many soldiers from seeking the care they need. Some fear being viewed as weak or worry that treatment could adversely affect their military service or relationships, despite ongoing efforts to destigmatize the issue.
A senior IDF commander told the Israeli public broadcaster Kan last year that "most of the suicides resulted from the complex reality created by the war," adding, "War has consequences."
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that the IDF had recorded a nearly 40% increase in post-traumatic stress disorder among its troops since September 2023, with 60% of the 22,300 people being treated for war wounds experiencing PTSD. The news agency cited an Israeli parliamentary committee's finding that 279 soldiers had attempted to kill themselves in the period from January 2024 to July 2025, and that IDF combat soldiers comprised 78% of all suicides in Israel in 2024.
Some observers—especially Palestine defenders—have little sympathy for IDF soldiers who kill themselves, pointing to the widespread crimes being committed in Gaza and throughout illegally occupied Palestine, including apartheid, settler colonization, and ethnic cleansing.
Others, recognizing their humanity and the moral injury that experts say afflicts many participants in war, mourn these deaths while maintaining that compassion for soldiers must never eclipse accountability for crimes against Palestinians.
After Eliran Mizrahi, a 40-year-old Israeli father of four, killed himself in 2024, his sister told CNN, “He always said no one will understand what [he] saw."
Mizrahi's mother said that "he saw a lot of people die. Maybe he even killed someone. [But] we don’t teach our children to do things like this… so, when he did this, something like this, maybe it was a shock for him.”
US psychologist Rachel Kabasakalian-McKay coined the term “complex implication” to define how “history often implicates us in networks of harm, even as we carry our own traumas."
"As humans," she explained in a 2025 interview with Psychology Today, "we can be both victims and perpetrators.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Politics Should Never Decide Who Gets Care
The Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule putting political appointees in charge of healthcare-funding decisions threatens the patients we serve.
Jun 20, 2026
As a nurse educator and a psychiatric-mental health nurse, we have built our careers on evidence-based practice, ethics, and compassion when caring for patients. Politics never entered the picture. Our responsibility has always been to provide care guided by science, professional standards, and the individual needs of our patients, not political ideology or partisan priorities. That is why the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule, Docket OMB-2026-0034, which would hand healthcare funding decisions to political appointees, stops us cold.
At first glance, this proposal may sound administrative or technical. In reality, it would fundamentally alter how federally funded healthcare, nursing education, behavioral health programs, and scientific research are approved, monitored, and terminated. Under rule §200.340, any grant can be ended at any point if it no longer aligns with the priorities of the administration. That is not oversight. It is political control.
For nurses, the consequences would not be abstract. They would be immediate, personal, and dangerous for the patients we care for.
Psychiatric nursing already operates within a fragile system. Across the United States, communities face severe shortages of mental health professionals; long wait times for psychiatric care; rising suicide rates; surging substance use disorders; and escalating mental health crises among children, veterans, and older adults. Nurses are often the last line of support for patients who have nowhere else to go.
Healthcare funding decisions should be based on patient outcomes, workforce needs, public health evidence, and community impact, not whether a program aligns with the political priorities of whichever party holds power.
Every day, we talk with parents who are doing everything they can to find behavioral care for their children, but too often they feel frustrated and alone. Parents often share that they spend months calling providers, sitting on waitlists, and navigating insurance paperwork, all while trying to support their child through daily challenges at school and at home.
Hospitals are faced with the daunting task of finding inpatient services for patients in crisis. Sometimes the search for placement takes hours or even days, resulting in patients, many of them young people and the elderly, sitting in over-crowded emergency departments, waiting for care that may never come.
Many of the programs that train psychiatric nurses, support community mental health services, fund suicide prevention initiatives, and expand rural behavioral healthcare depend on federal grants and cooperative agreements. Under §200.205, the proposed OMB rule places a single political appointee in control over those funding decisions, with the power to override independent scientific and professional review.
This should alarm every American, regardless of political affiliation.
Healthcare funding decisions should be based on patient outcomes, workforce needs, public health evidence, and community impact, not whether a program aligns with the political priorities of whichever party holds power. Mental healthcare especially requires stability, continuity, and trust. When funding becomes politicized, patients inevitably suffer.
We are equally concerned about the chilling effect this rule would have on nursing schools and healthcare education programs. Federal support helps nursing programs prepare students to work in underserved communities, conduct behavioral health research, develop telepsychiatry services, and address disparities in care. Under §200.206 a political appointee could deny funding to any institution deemed “un-American,” a standard so vague it could be applied to programs addressing mental health disparities, harm reduction, or any work that falls outside current political favor.
We encourage nurses, educators, researchers, and the general public to join us and submit public comments on Docket OMB-2026-0034 before July 13, 2026, urging federal officials to reject these policies.
The proposed rule threatens the integrity of evidence-based practice itself. Nursing education is built on teaching students how to evaluate research critically, apply best practices, and advocate for patient-centered care. We cannot tell future nurses to “follow the science” while simultaneously allowing political officials to override scientific peer review and the expertise of those closest to patients.
We know what happens when systems become unstable. We witnessed it during the pandemic. Burnout rises. Staffing worsens. Experienced clinicians leave. Patients wait longer for care. Rural communities lose services first. One of us lived through the 2025 Southern California wildfires. Vulnerable populations suffer most. The mental health system was already stretched thin before the flames arrived.
This OMB proposal risks accelerating those exact outcomes.
Public trust in healthcare depends on the belief that medical and scientific decisions are guided by expertise rather than ideology. Once political influence is written into the structure of healthcare funding, that trust may never be fully restored. Mental health patients already fight stigma, long waits, and shrinking access to care. They should never have to wonder whether a political appointee is shaping the care available to them.
Nurses are educated to protect human dignity, promote health equity, and uphold evidence-based care. Those values do not change depending on which party controls Washington. They are foundational to the nursing profession and guide how nurses advocate for patients, families, and communities every single day.
The OMB proposal is framed as a restructuring of federal financial assistance, but for healthcare professionals on the ground, it represents something much larger: a deliberate shift away from independent expertise and toward political control over healthcare priorities. That does not strengthen nursing, mental healthcare, or public health. It dismantles all three.
We encourage nurses, educators, researchers, and the general public to join us and submit public comments on Docket OMB-2026-0034 before July 13, 2026, urging federal officials to reject these policies. If we allow political ideology to dictate which healthcare programs survive, which research is funded, and which communities receive support, we risk abandoning the very people the healthcare system exists to protect.
Nurses stand at the bedside of patients during their most vulnerable moments, regardless of politics, income, geography, or background. Federal healthcare policy should reflect a similar commitment. The future of mental healthcare, nursing education, and public trust in science depends on preserving independent, evidence-based decision-making free from political interference. Our patients deserve nothing less.
Keep ReadingShow Less
You Can Mute Notifications But You Can't Escape the Algorithm
Social media companies have intentionally designed their products to be addictive to young users; the issue cannot be resolved until the entire architecture of the platforms is overhauled.
Jun 14, 2026
You can mute Instagram stories. You can turn off Snap Maps. You can silence every notification on your phone. But try turning off reels. Try removing your “explore page.” Try turning off your TikTok algorithm.
Social media platforms have spent years perfecting the art of giving users just enough control to feel empowered, but not enough to actually break away. The result is a false sense of autonomy. Psychology Today cites that users used to control their feeds by choosing who to follow and which posts to interact with, but most platforms have shifted to algorithms that prioritize content for users based upon its likelihood of engagement. Consumers now get countless settings to reorganize the surface level features of a structure that cannot be fundamentally changed.
These apps enable endless settings to facilitate an illusion of control, whether that be through settings privacy, hiding like counts, or blocking certain pages. But none of these features are meaningful. They all act as a decoy to prevent change from the much deeper issue.
The features you cannot turn off are the ones that keep you scrolling hour after hour. It is the product of years of behavioral engineering, precisely designed to exploit dopamine loops and addiction to keep account holders in a cycle that generates a feeling of continuous rewards. The ability to scroll infinitely on any platform through videos and suggested posts prevents the natural end that a finite feed would create. As time goes on, algorithms adapt to the users employing them. It understands what will make you excited, enraged, or captivated, all at the expense of your attention span and countless unreturnable hours of your life.
The question isn’t about how to not use social media—it's unavoidable. It’s about if you even have the ability to not use it.
In a landmark case in March of 2026, Meta and Youtube were just found guilty of intentionally addicting young users and damaging their mental health. The juries found them both negligent in the design of their platforms, knowing it was dangerous and failing to appropriately warn of the risks. The companies were required to pay $3 million in compensatory damages, and jurors recommended another $3 million in punitive damages.
This verdict is revolutionary because for the first time, the law has indicated that the design of the apps was the issue, rather than the content or the users. It changes the conversation from blaming consumers for being on social media too much to recognizing these apps are designed to make it impossible to walk away. This trial could set the precedent for the over 1,500 similar cases that have been filed against the companies.
The findings of this case are nothing new. For countless years, tobacco companies sold cigarettes knowing the devices engineered customer addiction, while vehemently denying the harm every step of the way. It's easy to reflect on that chapter of history with clearer vision, but it was difficult to spot in the moment. Now we are living through its modern day counterpart.
The difference in these cases is that purchasing cigarettes takes explicit effort, but social media follows you everywhere you go. It’s in your pocket, it’s with you at school, in the office; no place is out of reach and no moment is off-limits. There is no social media equivalent of a “no smoking zone” or too inappropriate of a place to check your phone. It is a socially enabled addiction with no guardrails to limit engagement.
The question isn’t about how to not use social media—it's unavoidable. It’s about if you even have the ability to not use it. When the entire algorithm is designed to keep you from clicking away, and keep the app gaining revenue, it’s not about your personal autonomy anymore, it's about the devices keeping you from being able to physically peel yourself away.
Politicians can see this problem too. California AB 2169 would require companies to provide a copy of their personal data, including behavioral profiles and the digital map of online interactions. It also mandates that platforms build a bridge to allow users to sync their friends and interactions to other apps. Michigan's Kids Over Clicks package SB 757-760 goes further to prohibit platforms from using minors' personal data to fuel recommendation algorithms without parental consent, banning manipulative patterns like streaks and reward systems to incentivize continued app usage, and strictly regulating AI companion chatbots that could encourage self-harm or serve as unlicensed therapists.
While these bills make leaps toward restoring user autonomy, none of them actually address social media addiction head-on. Knowing the features these apps use to trap you into endless scrolling is helpful but doesn’t stop the behavior at its core. The option to turn off these privacy settings and default restrictions is still present. The problem isn’t the content on the apps, but the design. We can’t stop at changing the features and restructuring the settings. The issue cannot be resolved until the entire architecture of the platforms is overhauled.
I’ll leave you with this: We already know how the story ends if we do nothing as we have lived it before. So what are we going to do today to write a different ending?
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Isn't Mentally Ill; He's Evil
Repeating time and time again that Donald Trump is crazy not only negatively affects the mentally ill but also seriously misunderstands the man and his policies.
May 14, 2026
Dear public figures, media folks, and journalists, please do not suggest that President Donald Trump is crazy. It is not helpful and, in fact, it is hurtful... not to him but the rest of us.
There are two main reasons for this request. First, calling Trump crazy is harmful to people who have a mental health condition or who have loved ones with a mental illness; second, it is inaccurate and leads to a serious misunderstanding of the man, his behavior, and it’s origins and consequences.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of unfair, hurtful, and false seterotypes of the mentally ill that are propagated and repeated over and over again in our society. For instance, media figures and journalists often describe perpetrators of violence as mentally ill. Generally speaking, this is not true. Study after study points out the the mentally ill, in fact, are not violent. Indeed, they are more likely to be the victims of violence than perpetrators of it. Most people with mental health diagnoses are law-abiding contributing members of society. Epidemiological research indicates that 97% of those with mental illness do not commit violent acts.
Nor are the mentally ill immoral. It is somewhat commonplace to find public figures, journalists, and other “experts” express that a person who commits a horribly immoral act must be mentally ill. This is a faulty presumption. Mental illness does not necessarily affect moral reasoning or understanding. It is pretty common to hear or read that those whose behaviors are irrational, unpredictable, or erratic must have a mental health condition. This, also, is a harmful and erroneous stereotype. After all, irrational thinking is pretty common. We are all irrational some of the time and in some situations. and also rational and predictable in others. Irrational thoughts are completely normal. Researchers sometimes point out that some kinds of mental illness may include a deficit in common sense or deviations from social norms but not a deficit in logical thought or “reason.”
Finally, the dictionary defines evil as actions and ideas characterized by impending future misfortune. There has never been a president of the United States more ominous than Donald Trump.
Another common misconception about those with mental illnesses is that they are dysfunctional and unable to live as honest and contributing members of their communities. This, too, is not true. The majority of those with a mental illness are simply ordinary folks. In any given year 20% or more of the population has a mental health diagnosis. Therefore, at any given time, there are millions of people with a mental health condition making positive contributions to their communities.
So, why do so many of us hold these false and damaging steretypes about those with a mental health condition? Perhaps the most common communicator of these misconceptions are the media of mass communication, both fictional (television, movies, internet sites, etc) and nonfiction (talk shows, news media, politicians, etc).
This brings me to Donald Trump. Repeating time and time again that Donald Trump is crazy not only negatively affects the mentally ill but also seriously misunderstands the man and his policies.
Donald Trump is not crazy, he is evil. The America Heritage Dictionary definition of evil has three components. The first one is that evil means morally bad or wrong. The list of the immoral acts of our president is too long to be included listed completely here, but consider just a sampling: participating in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses, illegally detaining and deporting veterans, children, and others; using charitable donations for personal desires; separating innocent children from their families; fomenting racism and racial hatred; ridiculing the disabled; daily misogyny; supporting white supremacy; inciting violence; lying for personal gain; harming the lives of LGBTQ+ people; taking food and medical care from children and their families; and the list goes on and on.
The dictionary also defines evil as harmful or causing injury and pain. Rather than repeating the cruel and hateful list above, please consider this sampling of the harmful consequences of decisions of President Trump: ordering the murder of hundreds of people who have been in boats attacked because they were supposedly carrying illegal drugs; murdering nearly a hundred people in Venezuela when the country was attacked and he ordered its president arrested; causing death and injury to tens of thousands of Iranians during his war against the government of that country; partnering with Israel's raining of death and destruction on the people of Lebanon, Gaza, and Palestine; expanding the embargo against Cuba causing pain, injury, and death to ordinary Cubans; and his administration’s defunding of the medical aid and food assistance provided to less developed nations by the US Agency for International Development, which has damaged the lives of millions of people around the world.
And, of course, actions of this president also have caused harmful and deadly damages within the United States. Consider: the terrible harms, injuries, and deaths caused by his orders to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), resulting in the detention of over 50,000 adults and children in dangerous and deadly detention centers; he also has deported millions of individuals, some to dangerous countries or to the very life-threatening situations they fled. In addition, he has empowered his ICE agents to injure and even murder US citizens who were exercising their political and personal rights; Trump’s defunding of federal programs in the areas of healthcare and the environment has stripped men, women, and children of their access to food and medical care, causing pain, injury, and death to many people; and his administration’s reductions of environmental protections and general disregard of climate change threatens the health of all living beings,
Finally, the dictionary defines evil as actions and ideas characterized by impending future misfortune. There has never been a president of the United States more ominous than Donald Trump. Nearly every day he posts messages that threaten his critics and opponents. He says he will use the power of the government to bring them down. He tells his supporters, “I am your retribution.” Time and time again, he threatens to destroy Iran, razing it to the ground and killing millions of Iranians. He announces planes to annex Greenland, Canada, and Venezuela. He hints that he is going to use force to change the political-economic system in Cuba. He says he will prosecute his political opponents for treason and has threatened to shoot those protesting in the streets. And, of course, he regularly declares that he will imprison immigrants and deport them to dangerous places. In just one year he has threatened to punish, invade, or take control of Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Nigeria, and Iran.
So, dear news anchors and pundits, please stop suggesting that President Donald Trump is mentally ill. Doing so defames and insults those of us who have a mental illness and misunderstands the problem that is Donald Trump. He is not “crazy.” He is prejudiced, cruel, violent, hateful, uninformed, dangerous, and immoral. Our president is not mentally ill. Our president is evil.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy